Page 105 of No Escape

“I think we’re definitely going somewhere with this, but what about the game room?” Alessa said. “What’s the zodiac sign for that room?”

“Sagittario,” Gio said, stepping forward. He mimicked shooting an arrow at the ceiling. “The archer.”

“That’s six,” I said. “Six signs, six niches. Guys, I think we have this.”

“But which one do we use for the maze?” Oscar asked. “Aquarius or Gemini?”

“We’ll try them both to see which one works,” I replied. “The number of different combinations to substitute between Aquarius and Gemini is manageable.”

I walked over the shelf and separated out the seven blocks with which we would work. “Now the question is, in what order do we put them in the niches?”

“There’s a couple of possible orders,” Slash said. “We could use the order in which they occur on the zodiac calendar or, alternatively, we could try the order in which we completed the challenges. There are others orders we should consider, but those would be my first two choices at this point. Anyone else have any thoughts?”

“I vote for trying the order of the zodiac calendar,” Tito said. “That seems to make the most sense to me.”

“I concur,” my dad said. “Most obvious first.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t make any difference to me. Does anyone know the order of the zodiac calendar? I don’t think these pictures are hung are in the right calendar order.”

Everyone looked at Alessa. “Aquarius is first, I think,” Alessa said sheepishly. “Sorry, while I know the zodiac signs, I don’t know the exact calendar order.”

I glanced hopefully at Father Armando, but he lifted his hands with a small smile. “Don’t look at me for answers to pagan puzzles.”

“Good point,” I said. “In that case, let’s pivot. We’re going to have to try the order of the challenges instead,” I said. “So, the room with the bull was first, followed by the garden maze, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Slash confirmed.

I studied the blocks and picked up the one with the bull… Taurus. “Where do I start, guys? At the top of the circle? Should I go clockwise?”

Everyone agreed that the top was as good a place as anywhere to start and that clockwise made the most sense. I placed Taurus in the niche. It slid in and clicked into place.

“Okay, what should I put for the garden maze? Aquarius or Gemini?”

“Let’s try Aquarius first,” Slash suggested. “Fountains imply water, and you said the woman was pouring water on the twins at the other fountain.”

“Not to mention the only other statue in the maze was a woman pouring water,” Mom added.

“Aquarius it is.” I picked up the block and put it in the niche. After further discussion I placed Sagittarius, Pisces, Libra, and Scorpio. As I stuck the last block into place, we all waited expectantly for something to happen.

Nothing.

“Swap out Aquarius for Gemini,” Stefan suggested.

I did as he asked, but nothing happened. I tried various combinations of the order of each of the challenges with no success. I finally stopped in frustration. “This isn’t working. We don’t even know if we’re starting in the right place.”

Vittoria returned carrying a book. “Sorry it took me so long to find this. I saw it in the map room during our challenge. I hope it’ll help. It’s an astrology book from the library.” She handed it to Slash.

“That was a great idea, Vittoria,” Gio said giving her kiss. “Brilliant, actually.”

She smacked him on the arm. “I keep telling you that. See, I do not have pregnant brain.”

We laughed as Slash flipped open the book. “Does it have the proper calendar order of the zodiac signs?” I asked.

Slash shrugged. “It depends on what you consider proper calendar order. Capricorn begins in December and goes into January. But if you start with that, you get Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. Since Capricorn isn’t one of our blocks, Aquarius will still be first.”

“Okay.” I put the six symbols from our challenge in the proper zodiac calendar order as he read them off. When he was done, I slid them into the niches. As I snapped the last block into place, I held my breath, but nothing happened.

I replaced Aquarius with Gemini, but still to no avail. “No luck,” I said in frustration. “We must be missing something.”

---